MANTICORA was formed in 1997 by Lars Larsen (vocals), Kristian Larsen (guitars) and Mads Volf (drums) – these three have made up the core of the band ever since. In the early days the band was a foursome with bass player Rene as the last member. Soon after the band recorded the now legendary mini CD “Dead End Solution”, which marked the beginning of the MANTICORA-trademark sound; hard hitting power metal with both epic and thrash elements.

In 1998 MANTICORA signed with Intromental Management and shortly afterwards their first record deal was signed with Greek record label Black Lotus. The same year the band added an extra guitarist and a keyboardist to the line-up. The debut full-length disc, “Roots Of Eternity”, was released in summer 1999, and received tremendously good response from both media and fans around the world.

2000 saw the band signing with the Italian record label Scarlet Records, and half a year later the next opus, “Darkness With Tales To Tell”, was released, and once again receiving great acclaim.

In 2001 the original bassist decided to leave the band to focus on his family. Kasper Gram was enrolled in the band as new bass player, and his young energy kicked the band into even higher gear. Along with the change of bassist came also the change of lead guitarist, as Martin Arendal joined the band.

In 2002 the band played a brilliant gig at the Sweden Rock Festival to a large screaming and head-banging audience and in the fall of 2002 “Hyperion” was released. This was the so-far most wide-spanning work of the band; an epic concept album, based on the award winning sci-fi novel “The Hyperion Cantos” by Dan Simmons. The album was whole-heartedly embraced by fans and media worldwide, and with a European tour in spring 2003 (with label mates Platitude as support band) MANTICORA took another step up the ladder.

In early 2004 the band began work on their next disc, “8 Deadly Sins”, yet another conceptual disc. The album was recorded in March/April 2004 in Jailhouse Studios with producer Tommy Hansen (Helloween, Pretty Maids, HateSphere, TNT etc.). and was released the same year.

In early 2005 the band toured throughout Europe together with Angra and Edenbridge. The tour was a great success for MANTICORA. Joining the core of Lars, Mads, Kasper and Kristian was session-guitarist Stefan Johansson and Swedish keyboardist Andreas Lindahl. The band then did their first ever (highly successful) US appareance at the ProgPower Festival in Atlanta, GA.

With Martin returning to the fold, the band once again went into studio, to record it’s 5th full-length album, the first part of the 2-album concept “The Black Circus”. Lyrically it deals with the horror story of a travelling circus in 19th century New England. The lyrics were written as letters from the main person in the story to another person. Once again produced by Tommy Hansen, the album was bigger, better and more adventurous than ever before.

After a mini-European tour, alongside Andromeda, MANTICORA hit Jailhouse Studio to finalize the 2nd part of “The Black Circus”. The album release (June 2007) was followed up by both a European and a USA tour, opening for the Mountain King: Jon Oliva’s Pain. The tours brought great success and a demand for more live-shows. So MANTICORA went on yet another European tour, now as direct support for Circle II Circle on the grand European tour in April/May 2009.

The rest of 2009 was spent, writing the 7th album, called “Safe” – a darker side of MANTICORA, showing that the band is also capable of writing non-concept albums again. A headliner tour was booked in 2010 after the release of ”Safe”, and 2011 was spent, playing festival shows, so Manticora is now able to stand on their own and break through into the higher league of metal!

With MANTICORA you get exactly what you could expect – a band evolving and fine-tuning all their best assets.